HER 

BROTHERS KEEPER 


FM/GC 

FT 

MEADE 

PZ 3 

. P339 

H 

2 

Copy 2 

BY 

MARGARET PEDLER 

II 


NEW XE{r YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 








COPYRIGHT, 1924, 

BY MARGARET PEDLER 



©C1A79357G 

HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 
— B — 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



HER 

BROTHER’S KEEPER 


I T was a good thing the foundations of Little Croft had 
been well and truly laid. The hurricane of wind 
sweeping across the moorland fairly howled round the 
sturdy, square-built house, tearing at the eaves and shak¬ 
ing the heavy oaken doors as though it sought to uproot it 
bodily from the solid earth on which it stood, while rain 
and hail, driven before the gale, rattled against the win¬ 
dow panes like miniature gunfire. 

“Beastly night!” observed Colin Trenby, leaning for¬ 
ward in his chair to poke up the fire. “Pity any one who’s 
out in it.” 

A man of six-and-thirty or thereabouts, seated on the 
other side of the wide, old-fashioned hearth, glanced up 
indifferently. 

“I shouldn’t imagine there is any one. The moorland 
folk have sense enough to go in out of the rain.” And 
his eyes fell again on the pages of the book he was read¬ 
ing. 

“Then you’re jolly well mistaken!” exclaimed Colin, 
jumping to his feet. “There is some one out in it. Do 
you hear that?” 

“That” was the hoot of a motor-horn, repeated urgently 
several times and sounding close at hand, and the next in¬ 
stant, during a momentary respite from the uproar of the 
wind, came a hurried tapping at the window. In a couple 
of strides Colin had reached the door and was out in the 
square hall into which it opened, and a minute later came 


4 


HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


the grating noise of bolts withdrawn and the creak of the 
heavy outer door as it swung wide, followed by a confused 
murmur of voices, one of them unmistakably feminine. 

“I couldn’t make any one hear.” The voices drew 
nearer. “So I told my chauffeur to tootle the horn while I 
rapped on the window. I was determined to get in some¬ 
how/' 

“I should think you were!” 

Colin had begun some eager answer, but the man within 
the room paid no heed to it. He had risen quickly to his 
feet, startled by a curiously familiar note in that other 
voice—the rippling, flute-like voice which crossed and 
mingled with Colin’s. A fleeting look of annoyance—al¬ 
most, it seemed, of apprehension—passed over his face 
and his eyes went swiftly to the figure which preceded 
Colin into the room. Sex, feminine—and for the mo¬ 
ment that was practically all that was discoverable. A 
green, fur-edged motor-cap, pulled well down onto the 
head, and the big fur collar of a similar green leather 
coat between them almost entirely concealed the newcom¬ 
er’s features, while high Russian boots meeting the flounce 
of fur which edged the coat completed the costume. A 
flash of topaz-golden eyes between thick lashes and the tip 
of a rather impertinent little nose was about all the out¬ 
ward woman visible. 

“This is Miss Verity Daryll, of the Cosmopolitan Thea¬ 
ter,” began Colin eagerly. “Her car’s broken down. Miss 
Daryll, let me introduce my brother Simon.” 

“I think we’ve met before.” Rut there was no welcome 
in the man’s grave voice. 

Miss Daryll, disregarding it, held out her hand, with a 
smile. 

“Why, of course we have!” she replied. “At the 
Sacheverels, wasn’t it ? I hope you don’t mind my taking 
refuge here from the storm?” She spoke airily, but an 
observant ear might have detected the faintest note of de- 


HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


5 


fiance in her tones. Colin, however, was far too enrap¬ 
tured at the moment to be observant. 

“He’ll be only too charmed, Miss Daryll,” he assured 
her eagerly. “He’s rather an old stick-in-the-mud”—with 
an affectionate glance at his brother—“but he means 
well.” 

In spite of a. certain family resemblance of tone of voice 
and gesture, there was a marked contrast between the two 
Trenbys, and Miss Daryll’s glance went curiously from 
Colin’s clean-cut young face, with its gay blue eyes and 
fair hair with the rebellious kink in it, that no amount of 
ferocious brushing would subdue, to that of the elder man 
—lean and rather saturnine, with grave gray eyes and a 
mouth that closed in a straight, unyielding line. 

“You’re thinking we’re not a bit alike?” said Colin 
quickly, interpreting her questioning glance. “But, you 
see, we’re only half-brothers—not the real article at all. 
Though it doesn’t make a bit of difference to us, except in 
the shape of our noses. Does it, old chap ?” 

Simon Trenby’s eyes softened oddly as they rested on 
the boyish face. It was obvious that this young step¬ 
brother of his, fifteen years his junior, meant a good deal 
to him. 

“Don’t you think,” he suggested, “that it would be 
rather more useful at this juncture if you helped Miss 
Daryll out of her motor-coat and ordered tea instead of 
discussing the fine points of our relationship ? Mean¬ 
while,” he added, turning to the visitor, “I’ll go and see 
what can be done about your car.” 

Verity nodded and proceeded, with Colin’s assistance, 
to disembarrass herself of her heavy motor-kit, emerging 
slender and delightful in the latest thing in frocks, riotous 
with embroideries in apparently every color under the 
sun and belted with a sash very low down on her hips. 
Accepting one of Colin’s cigarettes, she curled herself up 
in the chair Simon had vacated and proceeded to expound 


6 


HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


with much cheerfulness the series of mishaps which had 
culminated in her unceremonious onslaught upon the win¬ 
dows of Little Croft. 

“I don’t know what we should have done if we hadn’t 
happened across your place. We’d lost our way, and the 
engine was knocking like a steam-hammer, while the floor 
of the car resembled a pond more than anything else. 
Does it usually deluge like this in your part of the world ?” 

“Not often,” replied Colin. “This is about the worst 
storm we’ve had for the year. All the same,” he added 
audaciously, “I’ve no complaint to make against this par¬ 
ticular tempest.” 

“Nor have I.” Verity smiled back at him enchantingly. 
“Only I’d like to let the unfortunate friends who were 
expecting me know that I’ve found refuge here. They’ll 
be wondering what’s happened to me. Of course you’ve 
no telephone?” 

“Of course we have . ’Phone them that you can’t get to 
them till to-morrow.” 

She hesitated. 

“You can’t, you know,” insisted Colin. “Even if Simon 
and your chauffeur get the car into working order, you 
can’t possibly turn out again on a night like this. It’s 
perfectly respectable,” he added reassuringly. “We’ve an 
old gem of a housekeeper who stands for all the pro¬ 
prieties rolled into one.” 

Verity burst out laughing. 

“I don’t think that point would have bothered me much. 
And it’s awfully good of you. I’ll be thankful to stay if— 
if your brother doesn’t object.” 

“Simon! Of course he won’t. Why, you’re quite old 
friends, aren’t you ?” 

“Hardly that,” she submitted. “We both stayed at the 
same house once for a week-end. And frankly”—with a 
fleeting smile—“I don’t think he particularly liked me.” 


HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


7 


“Nonsense!” protested Colin stoutly. “He couldn’t 
help liking you. No one could.” 

“Thanks so much. Well, let’s say he disapproved of 
me, then.” 

It was some time before Simon returned from investi¬ 
gating the trouble with the car, and when he did it was to 
discover Colin and Verity consuming unlimited quantities 
of tea and hot buttered scones and apparently on the very 
best of terms with each other. A burst of gay young 
laughter over some ridiculous joke or other synchronized 
with his entrance. He was suddenly conscious of feeling 
old—old and tired. 

“I’ve given my housekeeper orders to prepare a room 
for you, Miss Haryll,” he said rather stiffly. “Your car 
can’t be put in running order before to-morrow, and in 
any case you couldn’t possibly face this storm.” 

Verity glanced up at him from under lids shadowed 
with faint purple. 

“I’m sorry to be such a nuisance,” she murmured. 

“Not at all.” But there was no cordiality in his dis¬ 
claimer, and Colin, flashing a quick look of protest at his 
brother, enthusiastically protested his satisfaction over the 
contretemps which had procured them the pleasure of Miss 
Daryll’s company. 

At dinner she appeared radiant in another creation of 
gold and green tissue which she had extracted from her 
suit case. She had extracted other things, too, to repair 
the ravages effected by wind and rain, and her strikingly 
pretty face was made-up to look, if not prettier, at least 
more striking than Nature had intended. Simon took in 
at a glance the darkened brows and lashes, the faint mauve 
shadows that deepened the setting of her eyes, the scarlet 
lips that were quite frankly and rather adorably the deli¬ 
cately penciled work of a lipstick. A veiled scent ema¬ 
nated from her vicinity—something Eastern and elusive 


8 HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 

that made you think of rose-leaves and sandalwood and 
moonlight gardens and desperately sweet music. 

“Do you take mustard ?” Almost savagely Simon 
pushed towards her the little silver mustard-pot that stood 
with its salt and pepper brethren betwixt his plate and 
hers. 

“Not with soup, thank you,” she replied meekly. And 
Simon, with a muttered ejaculation, hastily substituted 
the pepper and relapsed into angry silence. 

But his silence had apparently no power to damp the 
enjoyment of the other two. They squabbled happily over 
the salted almonds, which they both adored, argued heat¬ 
edly over the latest dancing steps, and discussed every¬ 
thing they could think of from the probable date of the 
end of the world to the origin of the Blues. And all the 
time Colin hardly took his eyes off Verity’s charming face, 
and equally she pretended to be totally unaware of the 
fact. 

After dinner she sang to them, playing her own accom¬ 
paniments, snatches of song from the various musical com¬ 
edies in which she had appeared. Simon sat listening 
with bent head and unsmiling mouth, and not even the 
most provocative of her little songs, sung with that same 
grace and impertinence which nightly packed the Cos¬ 
mopolitan Theater from floor to ceiling whenever she was 
playing there, gave him the least apparent enjoyment. 
On the contrary, he seemed relieved when the evening 
came to an end, and jumped up with alacrity to light Miss 
Daryll’s bedroom candle for her. Meanwhile, Colin stood 
murmuring extravagant boyish compliments in her ear. 

“You must come and see me in London,” she answered 
him charmingly. “We open next month—a topping new 
musical comedy, The Chrysanthemum. Don’t you”—she 
glanced round the old, oak-raftered living-room—“don’t 
you ever come to town ?” Then, her glance taking in the 


HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 9 

essential “rightness” of Colin’s evening kit: “You look as 
if you did.” 

He nodded. 

“We gravitate between Mount Street and this place. At 
least, I do. Old Simon digs himself in here most of the 
year round.” 

“Ah! But how foolish!” She bestowed a brilliant 
smile on Simon. “How foolish to—to vegetate like that!” 

“You think so ?” Simon parried the smile bluntly. “I’m 
afraid I can’t agree. I find nothing to attract me in Lon¬ 
don.” 

The next morning, amid a burst of sunshine and a 
flurry of farewells, Miss Daryll departed, smiling above 
the armful of flowers which Colin had rifled from the 
greenhouses right under the irate nose of the dour old 
gardener. 

“Colin, I want you a moment.” Simon laid a detaining 
hand on the boy’s arm. 

“Yes, old man, what is it?” Colin answered abstract¬ 
edly. His thoughts were really with the big touring car 
which was carrying Verity Daryll away along the ribbon 
of road that crossed the moors. 

For a moment Simon did not speak, but stood staring 
down into the fire. Then he said slowly: 

“Look here, Colin boy, cut the Cosmopolitan out of your 
scheme of things. Will you?” 

“What do you mean ? Why, Miss Daryll has asked me 
to go and see her there.” 

“Precisely. Don’t go.” 

Colin was up in arms in a moment. It was absurd, 
monstrous, behind the times to talk like that. Oh, yes, 
of course he knew his brother had a down on actresses, 
but nowadays they were amongst the most charming of 
women, and welcomed everywhere. Did he wish him— 
Colin—to become an absolute back number? Etcetera, 
etcetera.” 


10 


HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


“I’ll ask you one question / 7 said Simon at last. “Do 
you suppose Miss Daryll would have invited you to come 
and see her if she hadn’t known you were pretty well en¬ 
dowed with this world’s goods ?” 

Colin blustered. 

“How could she know? She happened in here quite by 
accident.” 

“Quite.” Simon’s expression was non-committal. “But 
she’d met me before at the Sacheverels, and you’re as well 
aware as I am that Mrs. Sacheverel knows the amount of 
our income to the last halfpenny. And what Mrs. Sachev¬ 
erel knows all her friends and acquaintances know. Take 
my word for it, Colin, a successful actress like Miss 
Daryll would have no earthly use for a young man with 
empty pockets.” 

But Simon’s warning fell on very stony ground. The 
production of the new musical comedy at the Cosmopoli¬ 
tan Theater found Colin installed in the Mount Street 
house, and it was very soon known to all those whom it 
concerned, and to a good many whom it did not concern 
at all, that in the evenings young Trenby was generally 
to be found in Miss Daryll’s dressing-room, while during 
the day she was constantly seen driving with him in his 
car or lunching or supping with him at the most expensive 
places in town. 

“Will you come this way, sir?” A trim parlormaid 
ushered Simon into the room, pausing in the doorway to 
add: “Miss Daryll is not down yet. I will tell her you are 
here.” Then she vanished, leaving him to take stock of 
the room in which he found himself. It was very much 
of the type that he had expected it would be. Plain wall¬ 
paper with a frieze of absurd purple camels trekking 
across a scarlet desert, futurist rugs on a polished floor, 
while neutral colored chairs and divan served as a back¬ 
ground for black cushions splashed with rich-hued em¬ 
broideries, on one of which sprawled a black and white 


HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


11 


pierrot doll, its long legs straggling limply. Tlie piano, 
chimney-piece, and any other available space appeared 
crowded with signed photographs of theatrical celebrities, 
boxes of cigarettes and chocolates, and big bowls of flow¬ 
ers. In the place of honor stood a large new photograph 
of Colin. 

Simon crossed the room to examine it and stood for a 
few moments regarding it thoughtfully. The boy had al¬ 
tered during the last few months, he thought. The blue 
eyes had hardened a little. They were more experienced 
eyes, and the mouth held a shade of recklessness. While 
he was still staring down at the photograph, the door flew 
open and Verity entered the room. She was wearing a 
thick silk Chinese kimono, gayly embroidered in what ap¬ 
peared to Simon to be a combination of cherry blossom 
and brilliant-hued fireflies. Her hair was loosely knotted 
in a great bronzy coil at the nape of her neck, and between 
her fingers she held a cigarette. Apparently she had been 
interrupted in the process of manicure, for while one hand 
was tipped with vividly pink nails, those of the other 
gleamed rather anaemically by contrast. She started as 
she caught sight of Simon. 

“You!” she exclaimed in surprise. “I thought it was 
Colin. The maid only said ‘Mr. Trenby’ was here, so of 
course-” 

“Of course. He’s such a regular visitor, isn’t he?” ob¬ 
served Simon. 

“Well—yes, he comes here pretty often.” The golden- 
brown eyes shot sudden defiance at him. “Ho you ob¬ 
ject ?” 

“Yes,” he returned bluntly. “I do. That’s why I’ve 
come to see you.” 

Miss Dary 11 regarded him with a faint, enigmatical 
smile. 

“Well, you’re frank, anyway,” she said, seating herself 
on the divan. “Won’t you sit down—and have a ciga- 



12 


HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


rette ? If it’s to be a prolonged seance we may as well do 
it comfortably.’ 

Simon sat down but declined the cigarette, and as though 
deriding his curt refusal, she herself lit another from the 
stump of the one she held and delicately puffed a cloud of 
smoke into the air. Then she humped the cushions more 
comfortably together at her back and regarded him quiz¬ 
zically from between narrowed lids.” 

“Well ?” she said helpfully. 

Simon hesitated. 

“First of all,” he said at last, “I want to know if it’s 
true that you’ve promised to marry my brother—to marry 
Colin?” 

She nodded. 

“Perfectly true.” 

“And may I ask why ?” 

Verity’s eyes widened. 

“Why? Well, why does one usually promise to marry 
any one ?” she drawled. 

“For a variety of reasons. Sometimes for money, some¬ 
times for position, sometimes merely to annoy other 
people-” 

He paused and Verity put in swiftly: 

“And sometimes—for love. You’ve left that out.” 

“Yes. I’ve left that out,” he answered. “Was I wrong 
to leave it out?” 

Beneath the direct inquiry of his glance she flushed and 
looked away. 

“Was I ?” he repeated steadily. 

“I don’t think I’m called upon to give you my reasons 
for marrying Colin,” she returned. “After all, they only 
matter to him, don’t they ?” 

“JSTo,” he said abruptly. “They don’t. They matter to 
me, because Colin matters to me, more than anything in 
the world.” 

“And you don’t like actresses, do you ?”—mockingly. 



HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


IS 


“No, I don’t.” 

“You showed me that-—quite clearly—when we met 
down at the Sacheverels.” Something, resentment or 
anger—or was it merely pain ?—smoldered darkly in her 
eyes. 

He threw her a quick glance of interrogation. 

“And is it because of that—because of that—you are de¬ 
termined to marry Colin ?” 

“I don’t like being snubbed, Mr. Trenby. I’m not used 
to it.” The answer came back like a rapier thrust. “But, 
do tell me”—with a resumption of her usual nonchalance 
—“why don’t you like actresses? We’re quite nice— 
really.” 

He was silent a moment. Then: 

“Yes. I’ll tell you,” he said quietly. “I don’t like 
actresses because it was an actress who ruined my father’s 
life. She was Colin’s mother, and my father simply wor¬ 
shiped her. And before Colin was a year old she had run 
away with another man—an actor—and returned to the 
stage. Not even motherhood”—his voice deepened-— 
“could hold her. It broke my father—I was just old 
enough to understand it. He was never the same man 
again, and when he died, five years later, he left Colin— 
Colin whom his mother had deserted—in my care. And I 
want to save him from being broken as my father was 
broken. He’s—he’s only a kid, and doesn’t know yet 
what—love—means,” he added. 

“But all actresses don’t run away. Lots of them leave 
the stage when they marry, and become patterns of do¬ 
mestic respectability.” 

“Once an actress, always an actress. The footlights al¬ 
ways call, and you’d go back to them. Because”—quietly 
—“you’re not in love with Colin, and love is the only 
thing which would make the sacrifice of your career worth 
while.” 

“You’re quite sure I’m not in love with Colin?” 


HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


14 

“Quite. And that’s why I’ve come to you to-day to 
make you an alternative proposal.” 

“A proposal ?” There was a curiously uneven note in 
Miss Daryll’s voice and a faint shell-pink crept into her 
cheeks. 

“Yes”—composedly. “If you will agree to release my 
brother from his engagement to you, I propose to settle 
two thousand a year on you.” 

The shell-pink vanished suddenly, and in the dead 
whiteness of the face she turned towards him her eyes 
gleamed like frosty stars. 

“So”—she said slowly. “You think I’m to be bought! 
You’re offering to—to buy me off?” 

“You put it very crudely,” he returned. 

“It was a crude offer.” 

“It was a reasonable offer. Marriage with a man of 
Colin’s means has other sides to it than”—cruelly—“the 
merely romantic one. You’re a woman of the world— 
nearly seven years older than Colin—and I was speaking 
to you as such. Need we wrap up the real significance of 
this interview?” 

Verity jabbed the end of her cigarette down on the 
black Wedgwood ash-tray and extinguished its glowing 
tip. 

“And I suppose,” she said in a high, rather strained 
tone of voice, “it hasn’t occurred to you that Colin may 
have no desire to be ‘released,’ as you call it ?” 

“Certainly it has. But it would be up to you to deal 
with that side of the matter—to cure Colin of his infatu¬ 
ation. That would be your part of the bargain.” 

She sprang to her feet with a swift, fierce movement 
of supple limbs. 

“Which I flatly decline to carry out! You can keep 
your two thousand a year, Mr. Trenby, and I”—her eyes 
flared defiance at him—“will keep Colin.” 

Mechanically he had risen to his feet wdien she did, and 


HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


15 


now he stood looking down at her, conscious of an odd sur¬ 
prise and bewilderment. He had been so sure that the 
money would tempt her, but, in the face of her flat refusal 
of his offer, he was beginning to wonder if he had utterly 
misjudged her. With his ingrained prejudice and hostil¬ 
ity to all her kind he had assumed that Colin meant no 
more to her than a financially satisfactory settlement in 
life. And now—now he was asking himself if, after all, 
she really cared for Colin ? 

He remembered his first meeting with her. They had 
both arrived by the same train at a little wayside station 
in Devonshire, and shared the same car, sent to meet the 
expected guests, on the fifteen-mile run from the station 
to Sacheverel Park. At the time he had no idea of his 
fellow-traveler’s identity, and there had been something 
about her—a frankness in the golden-brown eyes, a certain 
simplicity underlying all the sophistication evident in the 
finished detail of her toilette and her careful “make-up”— 
which had attracted him. Afterwards, when his hostess 
had formerly presented him and he learned that his com¬ 
panion of the journey was the leading lady at the Cos¬ 
mopolitan Theater, he had experienced a violent reaction, 
and throughout his brief visit he had deliberately avoided 
Miss Daryl 1 whenever politely possible and, when it was 
not, opposed a chill indifference to her friendliness. Then, 
later, a storm across the Yorkshire moors had brought her 
to the threshold of his own door, and his distrust of her 
type of woman had leaped into new life, to be justified by 
the way in which she had immediately, and apparently 
without effort, annexed his brother and attached him to 
her chariot wheels. 

But if she really cared for Colin, so much so that she 
was actually prepared to renounce the stage in order to 
marry him, then he had misjudged her terribly, and, at 
the thought, he was conscious of an odd conflict of emo¬ 
tion. The thing affected him with a strange poignancy— 


16 


HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


at one stroke it both gave him back the woman he had 
first met and known and took her from him irrevocably. 

“You don’t seem to understand.” Her voice had hard¬ 
ened and now drove harshly across the current of his 
thoughts. “You don’t seem to understand that marriage 
with Colin is a much better proposition for a woman like 
me than a mere two thousand a year—without marriage.” 

A wave of swift revulsion swept over him. He had 
been right, then! He had not misjudged her at all. She 
was as coolly calculating, as predatory in her instincts as 
any other woman of the adventuress type—capable of as¬ 
sessing Colin’s value as a matrimonial proposition to the 
last farthing. And beneath the grim satisfaction he felt 
at the correctness* of his earlier estimate of her, beneath 
the fury of contempt her frank self-seeking awakened in 
him, he was aware of a curious sense of disappointment. 

“So,” he said, and the scorn in his voice cut like a sharp 
blade. “So it’s marriage you want—marriage and money 
combined. Nothing less will satisfy you?” 

Unable to meet his eyes, she shook her head mutely. A 
bitter silence fell between them, bleak and biting as the 
iron-gray silence of an ice-bound winter night. At last, 
after what seemed an interminable length of time, he 
broke it. 

“Then—marry me.” 

“Marry—you?” She repeated the words after him 
doubtfully, as though uncertain if she had heard him 
aright. 

“Yes. Well?” as she still hesitated. “What do you 
say to it ?” 

“But, why ? I don’t understand. Why should you ask 
me to marry you when you’ve just been doing all you can 
to prevent my marrying Colin ?” 

“That’s why. I don’t want you to marry Colin. He’s 
got all his life before him, and—I want him to be happy.” 

“And you think that would be impossible—with me ?” 


HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


17 


“I do. That is why I’m offering you the alternative of 
marrying me. Fm the elder. From the point of view of 
this world’s goods I’m better off than Colin—much more 
worth your powder and shot, if you only knew it.” 

She winced at the brutal frankness of the speech, but 
recovered herself swiftly. 

“I can’t say I care for your method of making love,” 
she said, and her long brown-gold eyes challenged him 
mockingly. 

His own kindled, seeming to catch fire from hers, and 
he made a sudden impulsive step towards her. 

“Don’t you ?” he said unevenly. “Shall I try—another 
way ?” 

For a moment a queer, breathless silence held them 
both. The atmosphere was suddenly electric, charged 
with an emotional tensity which gripped both the man 
and woman. Verity’s hand went involuntarily to her 
breast. Her lips moved, but no words came. Then, as 
though some live wire had snapped between them, Simon 
gave a short laugh and drew back. 

“You should have all the money you want,” he went 
on in the same cool tones as before. It was as if that 
suddenly tense moment had never been; a door, ajar for 
an instant, had closed again between them. “And all the 
freedom. I don’t care a damn how you treat me—but 
leave Colin alone. Well, is it a deal? Will you marry 
me ?” 

Verity’s foot tapped restlessly on the ground. Her 
head was downbent so that he could not see her face. At 
last, however, she looked up, her expression enigmatic. 

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll marry you.” 

“And you’ll-” He paused, then finished with a 

faint smile: “You’ll—disenchant Colin?” 

She regarded him a little sadly. 

“Hasn’t it occurred to you,” she said, “that the mere 
facts of the case will disenchant him fast enough ? After 



18 


HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


to-day, lie will think of me—just what you think. And 
with more reason. He is”—her voice trembled the least 
little bit—“very like you in some ways.” 

Colin took it badly. There were only two things clear 
to his blazing young indignation. At one and the same 
moment his brother and the woman with whom he imag¬ 
ined himself in love had let him down. The scene betwixt 
him and Verity in the gay little room, with its purple 
camels and multi-colored cushions and floppy, straggly¬ 
legged pierrot, was short and bitter. 

“Simon was right about you, then,” he flung at her. 
“I jeered at him and called him ‘Simon Pure/ but, by 
God, he knew your kind of woman better than I do. He’s 
welcome to you”—savagely. “And I hope he’s pleased 
with his bargain.” 

Verity caught her breath. She wished she could tell 
him that he was misjudging his brother horribly. For 
herself, it didn’t much matter what Colin thought. Noth¬ 
ing mattered. 

“You don’t understand, Colin,” she said. “You—you 
couldn’t. But—some day-” 

“No, I certainly don’t understand.” The boyish voice 
was raw-edged with a fierce contempt that hurt right down 
somewhere in the depths of him. “And I hope to heaven 
I never shall!” 

He marched out of the room without looking back at 
her once, and for quite a fortnight the world was compact 
of dust and ashes and Colin a confirmed misogynist. After 
that, seeing that it was his boy’s pride that had been hurt 
rather than any more vital part of his spiritual anatomy, 
convalescence set in. 

Verity’s charming brows drew together as she pored 
over the letter she had just received. It was headed 
“Little Croft” and written in Simon’s decided, clear-cut 
hand, and, boiled down to its residuum of fact, it con¬ 
veyed the news that he had lost practically his entire for- 



HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


19 


tune in the big bank failure which had recently surprised 
the whole financial world. 

“I am now a comparatively poor man,” he wrote, “and, 
that being so, I can 710 longer presume to hold you to your 
bargain to marry me. You are free—free to marry Colin 
if you ivish. Probably you think this is a poor sort of gift 
I am giving you—merely the husk and not the kernel.. 
But the freedom I give you back is a real freedom. I 
could 7i ot give you less than I took from you, and as soon 
as it is humanly possible, I will see Colin and tell him 
that I, and I alone, am to blame for your refusal to marry 
him. His share of our mutual inheritance, by the way, is 
quite mtact, having been more fortunately invested than 
my own.” 

The wording of the letter was curiously stiff and for¬ 
mal, so formal, indeed, that Verity smiled a little to her¬ 
self. It made her think of a small boy who has tumbled 
down and cut his knees but proudly assures every one in 
rather unsteady tones that “it doesn’t hurt a bit, thank 
you.” 

The letter produced two immediate results. It pro¬ 
cured Miss Daryll’s understudy the chance she had been 
waiting for during many fruitless months, and sent Miss 
Daryll herself to the other end of England as fast as the 
midnight train could thunder its way northwards. 

It was early in the morning—to be accurate, at pre¬ 
cisely nine a.m.—that a rather uncertain tapping on the 
window-pane distracted Simon’s attention from his matu¬ 
tinal eggs and bacon. For, even though banks may fail, 
eggs and bacon still command an Englishman’s attention 
at nine o’clock in the morning. % 

The tapping carried his thoughts vividly back to a cer¬ 
tain storm-ridden night three months—or was it three cen¬ 
turies ?—ago, and he frowned irritably. 


20 HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 

“Oh, damn!” he muttered, because it isn’t nice to find 
that your nerves are playing tricks with you, and Simon 
had found this two or three times during the course of 
the last few days. 

Then the tapping came again, sounding too definitely 
on this occasion to be accounted for by jumpy nerves. He 
looked across at the window and saw her standing there, 
and before he knew what he was doing he had leaped up, 
thrown the window wide, and lifted her clean over the 
low sill into the room beside him. 

“Verity! Verity!” 

Then he remembered, and his arms fell to his sides. 

“What are you doing here ?” he asked dully. 

“It’s my place to be here. It’s any woman’s place to 
be with the man she’s going to marry when he’s in 
trouble.” 

He nodded. 

“Yes. It would be —if we were going to be married 
and if we were ordinary man and woman.” 

“I’m quite an ordinary woman,” she said. “You’ve 
never believed it, but actresses are—awfully like other 
women, Simon dear.” She smiled—a queer little tremu¬ 
lous smile. “They’re ready to stand by their men just as 
other women do.” 

“I don’t think you’ve understood. I’m a poor man now, 
Verity. Little Croft is all that is left to me.” 

She looked round the old raftered room with eyes that 
were very soft. 

“I’m glad they’ve left you Little Croft,” she said 
simply. “Two people who—who loved could be very 
happy here.” 

“Verity-” His hands gripped her shoulders, forc¬ 

ing her to face him. “Verity, what do you mean? Two 
people—who loved’? You wanted to marry Colin.” 

“Yes.” Her head drooped. “Because—just because he 
was so like you, Simon. He reminded me of you in a 



HER BROTHER’S KEEPER 


21 


dozen different ways—it was almost your voice that spoke, 
sometimes—your laugh. And I thought you would never 
care for me. You hated actresses so much. For you we 
were all tarred with the same brush—heartless, just 
squeezing all we could out of life, like Colin’s mother. 
Oh, it wasn’t fair, Simon—you can’t judge people like 
that. You see, I cared from the very beginning, when 
we lirst met at Sacheverel Park, and I had a feeling that 
you might have cared, too—only you wouldn’t let your¬ 
self-” 

“Yo,” he said. “I wouldn’t let myself.” 

“And afterwards—afterwards”—with a hint of tender 
mockery—“you were so busy taking care of Colin that 
you forgot all about yourself. Even when finally you 
did ask me to marry you—to save Colin—you still dis¬ 
trusted me completely, and you were so horribly rich that 
there was no way of proving to you that I loved—just 

you. But now-” She broke off and came quite close 

to him. “Simon, dear,” she said, “do you think you 
could ever learn to love me—and trust me, too ?” 

With that the last barrier went down, and he caught her 
up in his arms. 

“I think,” he said, “it would be the very easiest thing 
in the world.” 






JUL 7 1924 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



















